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This might seem like an odd article for The Roar, but having played the latest Rugby League video game “Rugby League Live” on PS3 (which follows Rugby League 3 recently released on Wii), I couldn’t help but think that the NRL is really missing an opportunity.
The game is decent at best; it certainly doesn’t compare to the EA FIFA and Madden titles, but that’s a given how small the rugby league market is in comparison. That said, I couldn’t help but think that the NRL is ignoring the potential of this medium in its mission to broaden its support base.
I’ve lost count of the amount of friends I’ve got who’ve started watching the NFL because they got hooked on Madden, and with the NRL trying to expand interstate, producing an up to standard video game representing the sport could help start growing the fan base. As it stands however, you just wouldn’t bother buying the game unless you were already a League fan.
HES, the company that has bought the rights to the NRL for the game, has obviously only managed to give the Rugby League games they’ve created only limited resources because of the limited return they expect.
Even in spite of this however, their games have sold very well in Australia and New Zealand (hitting number one in the charts back in the PS2 days – it’s been a long time between drinks). Unfortunately however, this just reflects that Rugby League is very popular in Australia. But ask a none league fan if they’d buy it and it’s pretty much a given they wouldn’t (barring the odd Union fan that is hankering for a title of their own).
HES’s investment in Rugby League titles is limited by market realities, but that doesn’t mean the games have to remain sub-par. Once the NRL signs it’s next TV deal (which is sure to give them a serious boost) I think they should seriously consider becoming directly involved in the development of the next title.
They should start by giving the developers free access to all the licenses and team likenesses, and then top up the resources of the developer (or even find a larger, more dynamic developer) with the investment of several million dollars on top of what HES has already invested.
Of course it’s unlikely that even with the inflated development resources that the title will challenge the long running major sports titles produced by the likes of EA, but it will nevertheless bring the standard up much higher than we’ve been used to for locally developed sports titles.
Indeed, it’s possible that the high development cost will result in a net loss, but this shouldn’t be a concern for the NRL. They must look at the project as an investment in fan base expansion. In fact, if they wanted to be clever about it, they should try to time the release of the title for when the competition expands into Perth (which seems to be all but a foregone conclusion now) and have the new team on the cover when released in WA. The TV commercials virtually write themselves.
A well-made, locally developed sports title based on an Australian sporting competition would go a long way to garnering interest from younger Australians who have only really been able to find quality sports games based on competitions and sports overseas. The further benefit is that once the initial investment is made, follow up titles are much cheaper to develop, but can be released annually at the same price and thus could work to recoup the losses incurred by the first game.
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